Learning to let go is not going to be that easy.

I have been active all my life so letting go is not going to be easy.  I live in a 2400 square foot house, and trust me, every inch of it is in use.  Most of it is used for "stuff" setting around full of more "stuff" or with stuff on top of it.  I am contemplating moving into a smaller place, but that means I have to leave some of the "stuff" behind, or give it away, or burn it, or sell it.  Now some of my "stuff" is good stuff.

So some one told me I should hold an item in my hands for 20 seconds and if it does not make me happy, throw it out.  I guess I will try that.  First I am going to pick up those 2 little toys on the computer desk and then go put them in the Jiraiya toy box because I know he is happy having them there.  My biggest problem seems to be in just deciding where to begin.  I could start on this desk, but that is not going to work because this is all important stuff.  Most important is that damned cat laying in the middle of everything.  But you must understand, she loves me and wants to be a part of everything I do.  She also likes to go way up high and bat stuff off onto the floor.

I could go start at the front door.  First we have a bag of clothes for Sister Nancy.  Then a small table that holds 6 egg cartons for Penny, mail I will probably never read and a bag of crochet that I carry when I go sit with someone.  Next is 4 milk crates of books that belong to PFLAG which will go to thier new home soon.  Very soon.  I have a card table, and a drafting table and 2 sewing machines in the corner.......

The point is, it is not just a matter of holding it for 20 seconds.  It is a matter of which part of my life is that item going to be used as a vital part later on today.  I should go down stairs and start digging there.  I have a box of basket weaving stuff that I absolutely had to have and then never touched after I bought it.  I want to give that to Erica, but first I have to find it.  I have giant gourds that I have had for most of my adult life that I am going to do something with any minute.  And if I can just find that box containing every Workbasket magazine ever published, I can put it on ebay and retire on the profits.  

I am sorry.  The 20 second second  rule is just not going to work for me.  I have a second plan that will no doubt be more condusive to my way of life.  I am going to get old and die.  The kids can come in here and do the 20 second thing and I am sure they are not connected to this shit like I am.  But then again, there is the possibility that they may actually see a use for all this stuff and they can take it home.  Course I am not sure any of them have room for 2 floor looms, 4 sergers, 5 sewing machines, a 6 needle embroidery machine, 7,000 bolts of fabric and 11, 426 spools of thread.  But I could be wrong.  

So here is the plan.  I am going to publish this blog and if I have anything you are interested in, give me a call.  Otherwise, I will be setting right in the middle of the whole mess wondering just where my things took possession of me rather than me possessing them.  

So having once more foiled myself in my desire to empty out this house and move into an efficiency  apartment in town, I will go have a Happy Valentine's Day coffee at Starbucks with my friend Nancy and buy 3 bags of goose food for the 8 geese out back that would never fit in the kitchen in town.  Oh, and the dog and cat seem to be at home here.  

But maybe some day.  Just not going to happen today.

So now what?

I am very naïve.  I have insurance on my car.  Full coverage to be exact.  I never use it.  I just have it.  My son bought an older car second car for 2 reasons.  First they needed an automatic because they needed a car for Amanda to drive since she does not drive a stick.  And his car gets like 13 miles to the gallon.  They live in Florence and he works in Pueblo and goes to the PCC here.

This was all working well and life was looking good until he was leaving work and some yoyo ran a stop sign, broadsided him and spun him head on into a third car.  Bret's car was totaled.  Of course Mr. Yoyo got a ticket.  His insurance called Bret that night and told him they would get him a rental car until they could replace his car.  Medical bills would be taken car of.  Well, here we are on the third week.  No, they do not pay medical.  No rental car has been forth coming and no one seems to want to talk to Bret.

So some one out there should be able to tell us what the next step is.  We called our lawyer, but he is not interested unless there is a big medical bill.  Since the kid HAS to work, and he HAS to go to school he really does not have time to be doctoring.  Life does go on.  And he needs another car that is dependable and gets good gas mileage like the one he had before someone totally ruined it.  I guess I am looking for a voice of experience to tell us what course to take rather then just set here and wish we knew what to do.

Any ideas?

Now I remember!

When I started out the other day, I had what I wanted to say in my little pea brain, but then I wandered off on a tangent and never made it back.  See,  think we are all descended down from a very long line.  Some where in our genes is every ancestor back through the beginning combined to make us who we are.  I also think that all of those genes are still living.

Like have you ever met someone and had an immediate connection with that person?  It is like you have always known them on some level even if you have no idea who they are or anything about them.  Have you ever walked into some place and knew on some level that you had been there before, but you knew you had not and you had never been in that area before, yet there it was and you knew when you went in the next room what you would find.

Much like a food, that although you have never eaten it, you know you do not like it.  And if you pick up a pen to write and have no idea what you are going to write, but soon the words begin to flow and the page is full.  By instinct you know that a rattlesnake is bad news.  You may have never seen one, but immediately you know what it is and you move away.  Same with a black widow spider.  They look harmless, but they strike terror in your heart.  Maybe some where deep in the recesses of your mind you have dealt with this stuff.

Most of us know that babies are helpless, but very soon they are reaching for stuff, moving toward things and then crawling and running.  We do not have to tell them to do this.  It comes from there inner voice.

I have an aversion to water.  Big bodies of water terrify me.  Why?  Who knows what went on back in my lineage.  I know my ancestors came over on a boat from Germany.  I know uncle Goll fell into a ditch in Dittengren, Germany when he was a tiny bay in his stroller.  Could that be what gives me my fear?

Just some thoughts before I go to bed.  Let me know what you think about my theory.  Sleep tight!

I have a theory about memories.

Many years back I read a series called "Clan of the Cave Bear" by Jean Auel.  The gist of the story, for those who did not read it, was that there existed a tribe of people who were apparently Neanderthals and they had found a young girl who was more advanced  (cro magnum) than they were. ( I may have those 2 backwards, but so be it.)   Apparently her tribe was wiped out in an earthquake and she was the only survivor.  She was found and taken in by the head medicine woman of the Cave Bear Clan.  To make a long story short (since there were 4 or 5 books written ) Ayla, became the protégé of the medicine woman.  I forget her name, but she was capable of calling into memory all her ancestors before her and when a question needed an answer she would seclude herself and with the help of some "herbs" go back in time and find the answer.  Lots of other stuff  happened, but this memory thing is the one I am addressing today.

As most of you know, I have a total of 6 kids.  I never really taught them to cook and yet they are all very good cooks and cook in much the same way I do. ( Little aside here.  The youngest may or may not know the fine art of cooking, but he is certainly an experienced eater, so I guess that qualifies him.)  When I lived with grandma Haas the only time we really ate a big meal was on Sunday.  Sunday mom and dad always came from Nickerson and Aunt Lola and Uncle Alvin would come in after church.  At precisely 1:00 dinner would be put on the table.  Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and cream gravy, green beans, fresh rolls, pickled beets, sweet pickles,  relish, butter, jelly.   And it seems Aunt Lola always brought some sort of chiffon cake, or bread pudding, or something like that.  When dinner was over and the table cleared and the dishes all back in the cupboard, it was time to doze.  A nap was always in order before the long drive (20 miles) back to Nickerson.  Us kids were allowed to run out in the yard as long as we stayed out of the street, which was also the highway, which was actually a county road.  We would walk up to the main business area which was one block away and consisted of Hinshaw's General Store, the bank and a filling station with one gas pump.  Oh, and the school.   Grade school was down stairs and high school was upstairs.

Sometimes if it was really hot, Aunt Lena would run water in her horse tank and we could jump in it and splash around.  (Aunt Lena was the old maid Aunt that is in every family, or was back then.)  We wore our clothes and let them dry in place when we got out.  Right beside Grandma's house and across the street on the way to town, was Great Grandma Hatfields old house.  She had lived right next door to grandma and had planned on marrying some guy and moving him in there when, sadly he dropped dead.  Since she was 75 or 80 years old at that time. she just closed up the house and moved across the street since by that time grandma Haas had her stroke and needed taken care of .  As her mother Great Grandma felt it her duty.  So there they lived until Grandma passed and Aunt Mable moved Great Grandma Hatfield (who was 99 years old at the time) to Coldwater where she lived until her death at age 104.

Grandma Haas is on the left and Great Grandma Hatfield is in the back.  If you notice Great Grandma has sandals on and Grandma has more sturdy shoes.  Great Grandma was a fashion plate right up until the day she died.  The plant in the pot is an Oleandar.  It is deadly poison.  Grandma had 2 of them .  One was white and one was pink.  They smell much like a sweet almond.  I have one that someone gave me 20 years ago.  This picture was taken outside Grandma's house about the time of her first stroke.  She was using a walker, but they wanted to look independent. The window is in front of the setting room.  That was where I slept.   Bless their souls.  I would give an arm and a leg to see them today.  They taught me to crochet.  We read the Bible every night.  Every night.   We never missed a night and we read it out loud.  We did not discuss it.  It was not up for discussion.  We read it and we memorized the important parts and I still know them today.

So where was I before I wandered off?  Oh, yeah.  Memories and the clan of the cave bear.  So there are times when I start to do something and it is like I did this before.  Never even thought of it before, but now I know how to do it because I have done it before.  Baking bread and rolling noodles comes as natural to me as walking, but no one ever showed me how to do it.  I can pluck a chicken and not miss a feather faster than anyone I know. (Of course I really do not know anyone else who cleans a chicken from the point of beheading it, to letting it bleed out, to scalding it and separating the feathers from the chicken and then gutting it.)  Actually, that sounds pretty barbaric, but there you go.  When we lived in Glasco, Kansas, I could buy 2 old hens at the feed store for 50 cents.  That fed us for a week.

Well, Good Lord!  I have no idea what I had in mind when I started this, but I need to wind it up somehow.  I guess you will just have to take my word for it that when I got up at 4:30 this morning I had my head full of wisdom that is far beyond my years and I wanted to share it with you.  I guess it is your loss!  That is what you get for thinking I actually know something! I guess I wish I could remember the things I am doing today as well as the things I never did that I remember so well.  Does that make sense to you?  Oh, shit!  If it does, we may both be in trouble!

Still water is not always running deep!

When I started datiing I drug home some of the damnedest things you ever saw.  Back in those days "cool" boys wore jeans with no belt and the waist band rode about 5" below the waist.  The legs were hemmed so they did not drag the ground.  Of course, back then kids had mothers that sewed and knew how to hem pants.  A sewing machine was a staple in any home.  Steve Dorrel was the first in our class to comb his hair into a "duck tail" and it was held in place with "greasy kid stuff."  He always wore a white shirt and the collar was turned up.  Every boy in school was measured by the Steve code and they all were found wanting.  Luckily, we had no idea what sex even was back in the 8th grade or everyone of us girls would have been in big trouble.

But grade school passed and high school was a new game.  No more Steve.  High school was pretty much a blur the first 3 years in Nickerson.  I was friends with a girl whose dad made home brew and that was fun.  My senior year I started in Hutchinson High School, ran away from home, came back and got a job in a "Toot and Tellum" which did not work out well at all.  It was at this juncture that mother suggested I might want to catch a man and get married, because I did not have a very bright future in store.

Now mother had always dispensed her wisdom on every subject known to man and people seemed to be her specialty.  "Still waters run deep."  This meant if a man was quiet, he was thinking, and if he was thinking that meant he was a good man.  Well, momma missed the  mark on that one!  I met my first husband because my brother brought him home to me.  He was quiet.  He opened doors for me.  So he had a beer now and then, but dad kept corn whiskey in the refrigerator so that meant nothing.  So in a matter of a few weeks I became Mrs. Tall Dark and Handsome.  He was actually a blue eyed blonde, and he wanted to get married and have babies and there I was!  Sadly, my first baby did not arrive for almost 2 years.  Mr. Still Waters became a regular little babbling brook and it was all aimed at my inability to conceive.  Hell, I was doing all I could and it seemed maybe he was at fault.  Yep.  Got scars on that one!  When my fertility kicked in, it was not to kick out for 7 years and 5 kids later.

But back to this still water running deep crappola mother was so fond of telling me.  My baby daddy was just the first water I encountered and let me assure you, I have learned a lot over the years, but it has taken me 75 years to get that one out of my head.  So let me fill you in.

(Now I am using the masculine noun here, because I am giving you my perspective as a woman.  Nothing personal)

If a man is not talking, it may be because he actually has nothing to say!  

Or he has something to say and he knows he is going to get an ass  eating if he says it.
Or he may be thinking about the hot little number he has lined up to see as soon as he gets rid of me.
Or he is waiting for me to excuse myself so he can pull his bottle out of his boot.
Or he may have actually forgotten I am there.

So there is a lot to be said on the subject of still waters.  Sometimes the still water is over the cesspool.  As I struggle through this life I meet a lot of people.  Most of them are just people and to be taken at face value.  But ever so often I latch on to one and hang on for dear life.  It never turns out well.  I have been a widow for 15 years and I have dated 2 men in that time.  I never really knew either one of them. 

I had a real connection with the first one, but he passed away.  He loved me and had we met at another time it would have been different, or so I think.  I even wrote a story about he and I.

The second one was a lot like a feather in the wind.  I never knew him at all, although I invested 5 years in what should have been a relationship, but was pretty much a superficial  sort of  a one sided friendship.  The boy was a lot like a bubble riding down a babbling brook.  Not all of us have to deal with reality.

I do not regret the time I invested in them, but I am pretty sure I am done with that dating business.  I tend my own flock, mow my own weeds, wash my own dishes and drive myself where ever I choose to go. I am starting to get out and do things that I did not have confidence in myself to do.  I went to Lakin last week and got my hair cut.  In April I am going to crawl on an airplane and fly to Dallas.  

Lord only knows what heights I can achieve if I just soar on my own wings for once in my life.  Bottoms up, momma, your little girl may be a woman yet! 

I am contemplating a trip.

I am thinking of going to Dallas for a few days.  Well, I am going to Dallas for a few days it is just a matter of how to get there.  So I called my precious son (and I drip with sarcasm when I say that) who lives in Dallas to consult with him.  I have managed to live on this blue ball 76 years and never had to crawl my ass on a plane, but he has faith in me.  The idea of flying terrifies me.  I would rather have a hysterectomy through my ear.  I would rather have my finger nails pulled off with pliers, but sometimes he makes me feel so silly with my phobias.

If I fly from the Springs I have to leave my car in the parking lot for 8 days and that will cost me over $80 which I am in no way in hell going to pay.  So I asked him if I could fly out of Pueblo and he explained that I would be on a tiny plane with no room and would wind up with my knees around my ears, but then he decided since I am short that would really not be a problem and then I had to put up with his maniacal laughter.  That plane would take me to Denver and then I would fly to Dallas.  I do not want to go North to get South.

A bus ride would take 14 hours, but who cares.  Course I could always drive, but my little car has a lot of miles on it and may not be the most dependable one on the road, but then again it might be kind of fun and I could stop and see Cindy!  Or I could rent a car.

So that is where I am tonight.  Thinking about doing this trip some time in April so I have a few days to plot and plan.  Hell, I might hitchhike.  I did that once you know.  I think I would be afraid to do it now with all the killers on the loose.

Well, time for Jeopardy!  so I got to go park myself in front of the television and sleep through that before I can go to bed.

I miss the good old days in the news room!

I can remember way back to when I first watched the news.  The camera would open on a man setting at the news desk and he would be reading the news of the day from a pile of papers in front of him.  We listened very carefully as he read to us.  Later there would be pictures sometimes.  Women were not newcasters at that time.  They were not even called newscasters, they were called newsmen.  Men gave the news and men gave the weather.  Women cleaned the newsdesk.

Time took care of that and I remember the first woman that was allowed to read a little of the news.  Of course I do not remember her name, because I mostly try to forget anything in the past.  The past is gone.  No need to remember that, unless of course it was something that was a learning experience and in that case it fell under the mother lesson of "Those who forget the past tend to repeat thier mistakes."  Newscasters' names did not tend to affect my future so I did not need to remember them.  Anyway, she sat quietly until something very boring like the social at the church came up and she was allowed to read that.  Sort of the token straw man or in this case woman.

A man always gave the weather.  You see, women have never been real bright when it came to important stuff, or so we were taught.  Kind of glad to see some of the changes that have come along, but back to the news desk.  The piles of paper were replaced by the teleprompter and the news feed and even the weather desk began to change.  A man used to tell us what last nights temperature was, and what we could expect tomorrow.  Some guy would usually show us either a sun or a cloud, or maybe even a snow flake!

Well, welcome to today's news and weather!  I am sorry, when I turn on a channel and there stands some man and woman in the center of the stage with thier hands folded and they are giving me the news, I rebel!  Sit down!  Sit down behind the desk and at least look like you are giving me the latest update.  I see your videos.  I realize you are just parroting what is going on in your ear from the tiny microphone hid there, but at least sit down behind your desk.  Look like you are a news person and not a fashion plate.  Standing there telling me the news is second only to the chipper your fashion plate that shows up in front of a weather map in her tight fitting dress with no sleeves and I know it is freezing cold outside.  She is telling me to bundle up and she should be bundling herself!  But the best part is when she hurries across the stage so I can get a better look at the weather back there on the board and then begins to tell me about the "out the door" clothes I need to wear.  And tuck in the old umbrella because it may or may not rain.  This little lady has no idea what time I am leaving the house, so she does not know what time I will be home.

Of course all the news is mostly teasers and some one tells me I will hear more on the news at 5:30 or 6:00 or later on in the evening.  Now, sorry about this, but I do have other things to do.  I want all my news in the first 10 minutes and all my weather in the next 3.  Show me a map of the jet stream and I can draw my own conclusions.  I do not have time for your opinions and your speculations and as for the weather a simple "windy tomorrow","gonna rain" or "I have no idea" will do nicely.  Spare me the cutesy little asides.

Hey! just found a channel where the woman is actually dressed for the weather.  Have not seen the newsman yet, but sure he is there somewhere.  There are actually 3 women and 1 man.  They are dressed for the weather and the man has on a suit.  Whoohoo!  I may actually set down and watch a little bit!

Disclaimer:  All opinions expressed in my writing are completely my own and should not reflect on any woman or man who appears on my television.  If you are tempted to call me names and throw eggs at me, that is your right.  I live solely by the motto of "Live and let live!"  And the last newswoman I actually knew the name of was Sandra Mann.